


Dean and Tally: Consider the Source

by AGJ1990



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22794403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AGJ1990/pseuds/AGJ1990
Kudos: 1





	Dean and Tally: Consider the Source

**Disclaimer: The characters of Supernatural did not belong to me.**

**A/N: Hi guys! So I wrote this chapter when i originally wrote Family Don't Start in Blood. I had a computer disaster and thought I lost the chapter, but surpise, I found it! It takes place after the chapter where Dean spanks Tally and before the one where Sam confronts Dean and Lily on their behavior. This chapter is all Tally, although Dean and Sam are mentioned several times.**

**I made this a separate story because I couldn't put it into the original without breaking the flow of that story. If you haven't read the original, this one will not make much sense, so please don't leave any reviews complaining about a lack of context.**

**I'm talking a small break from my Kayla story. Just a few days. I have an Evy story In the works. I haven't written her for a while, so I'm going to finish that one first. It's short, so it shouldn't take me long.**

**Thanks and enjoy!**

Tally knew that the reason for the spanking she'd just gotten was because of her attitude. She'd never admit it to Dean or her mother, but she even agreed with it. She'd been terrible to them. She could see where they were trying to help her, trying to help her get past what happened to her dad. She knew her mother was trying to be a mom to her now. The problem with that? It was a little too late. As she shut her bedroom door, careful not to slam it like she really wanted so that she wouldn't get yelled at again for wanting to live her life, Tally thought back to the last few months.

She still remembered the last day her daddy had been alive. Lily had promised to come home for the weekend and backed out at the last minute. Tally was, of course, angry, but kept her promise to her daddy and didn't confront Lily about it. To make her feel better, Ken had taken her out on a daddy daughter date night. They'd had them before, and Tally had mistakenly believed they'd have them again.

For three days after that, Tally's whole world had fallen apart. Ken was dead, Lily was nowhere to be found, and she was stuck reliving what had happened that night in her head over and over and over. Those three days were still fuzzy in her mind. She vaguely remembered her uncle picking her up at the police station and coaxing her into the car an hour after everything happened. She remembered her aunt helping her get a bath that night, and crying so hard she got sick after finding some of her father's blood still on her.

But the one thing that was absolutely clear in her mind, that never went away no matter how much she tried to not think about it, was her mother's absence during those three days.

Tally had almost come to terms with the fact that her mother wouldn't be there. She'd clung to her grandmother and aunt during that time, comforting her grandmother and falling apart more than once in her aunt's arms. Then, suddenly, everything changed again. The day before they were set to have her father's memorial service, Lily showed up, with Sam and Dean in tow.

Sam had been nice enough. He'd said hi to Tally and let her know that he was there if she needed him. He didn't push himself on her, just asked if she was hungry, if she wanted to talk about 'things', and even helped her to pick up her room after she'd gotten angry about something and thrown all her toys around.

Dean was different. He started out being nice to Tally, but his being nice turned into being bossy. Tally would ask her mother for something and Dean would say no. For the first two weeks after Dean had moved in, Tally had bitten her lip and listened when Dean would tell her that. But when Dean started to say she couldn't talk to her grandmother, or her aunt and uncle, or her cousins, or her friends, because she 'needed to stay home with us', Tally started to fight back. She asked Sam to intervene for her a couple of times, but eventually she just told Dean to leave her alone.

Tally was tired of being awake.

When she was asleep, she could dream about her daddy, about being much younger than she was right now, times when she was happy and content and safe and at peace. But now, all she ever felt was…she didn't know what exactly she felt. She knew she wasn't happy. She wasn't even sure she knew what happy felt like anymore. She was cruising through life, just trying to get from one day to the next, and she wasn't doing a very good job at it.

Unable to sleep, Tally went over the events of earlier in the night. It had been almost an hour since the confrontation in the living room, but the things that Lily and Dean said to her still rang through her mind and hurt a thousand times worse than the sting that was still in her butt.

_Your daddy would be ashamed of you._

_You are going to spend this entire hunt in the hotel room thinking about the reasons he would be ashamed of you._

_Your daddy raised you better than this._

_I won't bother to come and say goodnight._

_Stop being a bitch._

Lily had been the one to insist on the 'say good night every night' rule. She told Tally it was easier for everyone to sleep well if you did that. Tally thought it was stupid. If you were angry when you went to sleep, no matter what the reason, sleep wouldn't be easier just because you were told good night. But, as her mother and Dean seemed to want to drive home to her, it was okay for them to break the rules and not for her. Just because Lily was mad at Tally, she didn't have to tell her goodnight.

But what hurt the most, what was keeping her crying now, was telling her that her daddy would be ashamed of her.

Tally pulled out a picture she kept under her mattress of her and her daddy. She was little in the picture, no older than five or six. Ken was holding her on his hip, tickling her, trying to make a grumpy Tally smile for the camera. Tally felt her lip start to curl, a half attempt at a smile that felt strange and alien to her.

_Six Years Later_

_"Come on, Tally Belle. Smile for me, please."_

_"No."_

_"Why not?"_

_"Don't wanna smile. Wanna be grumpy."_

_"If I make you want to smile, will you?" Ken asked._

_Tally's frown deepened, the universal sign she was suspicious. "How you gonna do that?"_

_"Like this."_

_Before Tally knew what was happening, her daddy had lifted her high up in the air and tossed her towards the sky. Tally couldn't help it. She let out a giggle and begged him to do it again._

_"Will you smile for me? Just long enough for grandma to take one picture?"_

Tally heard her mother coming into her room, and it snapped her out of her memory. Her first instinct was to get angry again, to tell her mother to leave her alone and let her get some sleep. Instead, Tally pulled her blanket over her and pretended to already be sleeping. Lily kissed her cheek but didn't say anything.

In Tally's mind, her mother's silence sealed in everything that had been said in the living room. Her daddy would be ashamed of her if he saw her now. He wouldn't tell her he was proud of her all the time, or tell her she was beautiful, or that she was the sunshine in his life.

She was what Dean had said she was. A mean, selfish bitch.

Realizing the truth in Dean's words hurt doubly bad when she remembered her daddy's reaction when she'd used that word. Lily had, again, broken some promise to Tally. An angry Tally, having heard the word at school, called her mother a bitch under her breath.

It was the only time Tally ever remembered her father punishing her without calmly talking to her about it first. Before Tally knew what hit her, her father had grabbed her arm, pulled her pants down, and spanked her until she was howling in pain and snot was running down her face. He'd sent her to her room immediately after, then came back a few minutes later. He'd apologised for spanking her so hard without talking to her about what she'd done wrong first. But, he said, the word she'd used was very disrespectful and that he'd better not ever hear it come out of her mouth again. If it did, the spanking she'd just gotten would seem easy in comparison. He'd also told her to tell him or another adult she trusted if she was ever called that.

But there was a problem. She couldn't call her aunt and uncle or her grandmother without Dean and her mother knowing. Sam was gone. Dean had been the one to call her a bitch, and her mother had stood there and said nothing.

So, Tally decided again, she must be one.

What she couldn't figure out was what she'd done to earn that title.

Sure, her attitude towards her mother and Dean had been rotten. But she'd followed all their stupid rules, however begrudgingly. Dean would tell her not to argue, but when she tried to walk away so she didn't argue, he'd condescendingly remind her about the respect rule. She had asked very nicely for her mother and Dean not to move into her father's bedroom. That request had been ignored. Every attempt Tally made to keep her life somewhat similar to the way it had been before was met with resistance. Sleepovers with friends were denied. Being on her soccer team was met with conditions that were only reached after a fight. Though her visits to her family weren't limited, her times of going alone had become nonexistent.

Though she thought it, Tally had never told Lily she was a bad mother. She'd always known, deep down, that her mom was truing, and she didn't want to hurt her like that.

And the one thing that had never even crossed Tally's mind? Calling her mother, Dean, or anyone such a mean name to their face.

Daddy was a science teacher. One of his favorite sayings had always been "consider the source". He'd explained to Tally that when a scientist looks at another scientist's work, he has to consider that other scientist's reputation. If he didn't have a good reputation, anything he came up with couldn't really be trusted. Tally decided to apply that principle to her current situation.

Daddy had been with her almost every single day. The only times he wasn't with her was when he was teaching night classes, and most of those were spent with her grandmother. In the whole eleven years and nine months she'd lived with her daddy, she'd never once caught him in a lie.

When her Daddy told her how he felt about her, the only words he'd ever used were proud, love, beautiful, smart, and the like. Occasionally he'd called her a brat, but the word had never left his mouth without a smile on his face.

Tally reached her own conclusion. She could trust eleven years of her father's words, or she could trust the only time recently that her mother had bothered to really talk to her.

Her father wasn't ashamed of her. He never had been and never would be.

The thought of the long cat ride the next day made Tally's throat hurt. The thought of spending any time at all with her mother and Dean made Tally afraid. She decided, then and there, she had to get away.

As she moved through her room, grabbing things she'd need, Tally actually felt guilty. She decided to leave her mother a note. Besides, she reasoned, doing something nice, like leaving a note instead of just running off, would negate Dean's theory of her being a bitch, wouldn't it?

Finally, Tally had everything she needed. She took her backpack, her picture of Ken, and headed softly to the front door. Praying she wouldn't wake anyone up, Tally closed the door and headed off into the night, alone.


End file.
